Thursday, 12 November 2009

One of the great things about being a photographer invited to view a fashion launch is that you actually get to see the clothes! Now that might sound like a strange thing to say but often photographers are there with a job to do and that job is quite often photographing the clothes as they come down the runway. Nothing wrong with that! But if you are interested in fashion, shooting runway keeps you way to busy making pictures to allow you to concentrate on whats happening with the clothes themselves. Thats one of the reasons I don't shoot runway. I much prefer to be sitting on the side making notes about what I love about a new range.

The show was at Stills Gallery in Paddington which still has the Trent Parke show up which I had seen at Trent's opening a couple of weeks prior. The work made a great backdrop for the parade and was getting a lot of admiration from the fashion set while waiting for the show to begin.

I have been planning a night shoot (with very little light) and wondering where I might find outfits with the sort of great structure that could stand out in tricky lighting conditions and still make a statement. Carl's show provided me with plenty of inspiration.

So in line with my contradictory nature (about photographing at shows) I pulled out my little G10 point-and-shoot and did a little 'shooting from the hip' to make some visual notes on Carl's designs.

Unfortunatly I didn't get shots of everything I liked. I missed getting a shot of the 'Biker Girl' inspired outfit; leather blouson jacket with tailored jeans, (but with more layers than the jeans worn with the red jacket above). The detail of the pockets was inspired across the range.

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Its nice to see blogging, portraiture & retail all getting on so well together. In this case I was able to collaborate with Imelda shoe blogger Imelda Matt once again on a portrait project; this time for a window display in Brisbane's luxury emporium Jean Brown. The shot was done in one fairly quick afternoon session in the studio.

Saturday, 24 October 2009

My new web site is now up on-line. Its a complete redesign with horizontal scrolling pages that finally allows me to show the work the way it was shot-to-be-seen. I am quite excited by the result and some of the stories (the individual stories are now viewable on single pages) that perhaps left some scratching their heads thinking "what the...?" now make visual sense in the way they were intended to.

Thursday, 8 October 2009

I had the great pleasure a few weeks ago of working on a collaboration with Elodie Silberstein and Rhiannon Bulley for the 'Mirrors' show opening next week at Morie Gallery.

Concept and Direction was provided by Elodie whom I have known through art circles for a while now & who I also had the pleasure of doing a portrait shoot with back in April of this year.

The shoot took place in Glebe. Elodie came in with her art notes, outfit and of course Rhiannon who modelled as a kind of Japanese Ningyo Doll. It was a great learning experience for me working alongside Elodie and being part of her process for bringing about the final image she was visualising with Rhiannon. It was a bit like a Master Class in Art & Process!

Of course Elodie's final work is much much more than one shot and is part of the Mirrors Art Exhibition curated by Rhiannon; an awareness and fund raising show for The Butterfly Foundation. Its well worth coming along to the opening night if you can make it as there is also a performance aspect to Elodie's work that will only take place on the opening night.

Friday, 17 July 2009

Working to a very tight schedule the team & I shot two ranges for Jools new fashion label. The post processing for these shots was inspired by my recollections of the sun faded posters I still sometimes see in the windows of Tailor Shops with the classic magenta shift of old family photos. Fashion photography meets remembrance of times past.

We worked through over twenty looks on the day with both dark background and the lovely luscious pink!

Friday, 22 May 2009

A while back I received a Facebook message from a friend saying that he had given my phone number to a Vietnamese model; that she would be in Sydney soon, and she would contact me…

Cool I thought, and then forgot all about it…

But I did get a call from Hoàng Khánh Ngọc in late March. She dropped by the studio with some very cool tear sheets to show me at which time I found she was 181cm, 5' 11 1/2" tall, Miss Vietnam in 2004 and quite a glamorous model. After a bit of a chat we decided to organise a studio shoot to put some new Australian Fashion Photography work in her book.

For the styling I called up the very talented Seed of Scarlet designer, Fiorella Castro to see if I could borrow a few of the outfits from the new SoS range we shot earlier this year. I chose a few of my favourites from the Look-Book shoot and we were good to go.

Make Up was by Jessica Beazley and Hair by Emma Neilson, it was our first time working together and they did a great job. I decided to continue on with the theme of ‘Studio as Location’ looking for a more open studio feel. After the first couple of shots we veered of into ‘Frankie’s Nightclub’ mode, the shot at the top of the page and finished with the very lovely Layered Orange Maxi Dress in a wild Sphinx like shot.